I had my big scary meeting!

I've been in NYC this week... and not because of the hurricane in Florida (thankfully we were in a safe area but my heart goes out to everyone affected, what a bitch Mother Nature can be).

Unforutnately, the hurricane was forecast for when I was due to be meeting the retired CEO of Macy's Inc. Luckily I managed to fly out couple days earlier than needed and got a little studio apartment to work from. This just gave me extra time to get in my head and get extra nervous but it actually went okay. It's funny, in my corporate career I've closed deals worth over £60 million and never got the shakes once but THIS, something that truly matters to me, I was a wreck!

We met early in the morning at a diner and I talked to him about what I'm trying to achieve, after the first couple minutes I calmed down and got into the swing of things. ICYMI I'm building a charity, in honour of my late Aunty Bubs who was super charitable, but I'm not branding it/marketing it/operating as a charity in the traditional way... we're not asking for cash or doing fundraisers or tying ourselves to one particular cause. Instead, I've decided to take the excess stock from brands that they can't sell (you'd be surprised at the volumes I'm talking about), set up an online retail outlet, and donate the proceeds to a variety of causes that need cash. We're starting with beauty and skincare. There's a tonne of reasons that this should work, we talked through it all, and he agreed with 90% of what I was saying which was super reassuring given his inside knowledge of the industry. He gave some useful pointers.

My absolutely wild lofty dream was that he would be so blown away that he jumped out of his seat and demanded to be put on the Board to MAKE THIS HAPPEN. Unsurprisingly, that wasn't the outcome, BUT he has offered to share some of his contacts/make some warm intros in the beauty industry. I'm quite the skeptic and I won't believe it until it happens, but I truly hope I did enough for him to feel like following through on his word! I'll keep you posted.

Meanwhile, I'm continuing to reach out cold to the CEO's/Founders/Higher Up's at the brands we're targeting and hoping for a breakthrough. It's time consuming and soul destroying (did you know statistically it takes FIFTEEN touch points to go from cold to getting a response) but I won't give up! If anyone has any connections in their network that might be able to help me, please reach out! Having moved to a new country knowing nobody I'm really working from the ground up.

Here's a photo of me running across Brooklyn Bridge the day before the meeting because exercise works wonders for my brain (and I wanted a bagel from the other side).

Catch you next week! x